Posted on 07/08/2007 10:36:02 PM PDT by FreedomCalls
When I went to my office Monday, July 7, 2003, Joe Wilson was not in the forefront of my mind. Frances Fragos Townsend was. She had just been named deputy national security adviser at the White House though her background was in liberal Democratic politics, including Attorney General Janet Reno's inner circle during the Clinton administration. Her appointment was a political mystery of the kind I had been exploring for forty years in my column.
I wrote the Townsend column Tuesday morning because I had a busy schedule the rest of the day, including a 3 p.m. appointment with Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state. I had no idea what a big event it would turn out to be.
Armitage was less guarded
I asked to see Armitage early in the George W. Bush administration and repeated my request after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Armitage and Colin Powell, the new secretary of state and Armitage's close friend, were widely perceived as being out of step with the rest of the administration about military intervention in Iraq.
I had ready access to Powell, in person and over the telephone, but he was circumspect in what he said to me, while Armitage had a reputation for being less guarded in conversations with journalists. Armitage rebuffed me, not with the customary evasion of claiming an overly full schedule but by his secretary making clear that he simply did not want to see me. I assumed that Armitage bracketed me, a notoriously conservative columnist, with the Iraqi war hawks who were unsympathetic toward his views. If so, he had somehow missed my written and spoken criticism of the Iraqi intervention.
Then, in the last week of June 2003, Armitage's office called to agree unexpectedly to my request and set up the appointment for July 8.
Neither of us set ground rules
It is important to note that Armitage reached out to me before Joe Wilson went public on the New York Times op-ed page and on "Meet the Press" with an account of his Niger report that he said contradicted 16 words in Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address: ("The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.")
I was ushered into Armitage's big State Department inner office promptly at 3 p.m. Neither of us set ground rules for my visit. I assumed, however, that what Armitage said would not be attributed to him but would not be off the record. That is, I could write about information he gave me but would not identify him by name. During a long career, I had come to appreciate that sort of thing in countless interviews without putting it into so many words. I viewed what Armitage told me to be just as privileged as if he had made me swear a blood oath.
Armitage was giving me high-level insider gossip, unusual in a first meeting. About halfway through our session, I brought up Bush's sixteen words. What Armitage told me generally confirmed what I had learned from sources the previous day while I was reporting for the Fran Townsend column.
I then asked Armitage a question that had been puzzling me but, for the sake of my future peace of mind, would better have been left unasked.
Why would the CIA send Joseph Wilson, not an expert in nuclear proliferation and with no intelligence experience, on the mission to Niger?
"Well," Armitage replied, "you know his wife works at CIA, and she suggested that he be sent to Niger." "His wife works at CIA?" I asked. "Yeah, in counterproliferation."
He mentioned her first name, Valerie. Armitage smiled and said: "That's real Evans and Novak, isn't it?" I believe he meant that was the kind of inside information that my late partner, Rowland Evans, and I had featured in our column for so long. I interpreted that as meaning Armitage expected to see the item published in my column.
The exchange about Wilson's wife lasted no more than sixty seconds.
I never spoke to Armitage again about Wilson. But he acknowledged to me nearly three months later through his political adviser, lobbyist Ken Duberstein, that he was indeed the primary source for my information about Wilson's wife. Shortly thereafter, he secretly revealed his role to federal authorities investigating the leak of Mrs. Wilson's name but did not inform White House officials, apparently including the president.
After Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago named as a special prosecutor in the case, indicated to me he knew Armitage was my source, I cooperated fully with him. At the special prosecutor's request and on my lawyers' advice, I kept silent about this -- a silence that subjected me to much abuse. I was urged by several friends, including some journalists, to give up my source's name. But I felt bound by the journalist's code to protect his identity.
Reprinted from The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington, Copyright © 2007 by Robert D. Novak. Published by Crown Forum, a division of Random House Inc., available in bookstores Tuesday.
Fitzy? You got some 'splainin' to do.
So Armitage wanted it out in public. Fritz you got some explaining to do.
From the man who cost the tax payers millions, made the Wilsons rich and mayhave cost the Republicans votes in 2006. No thanks Novak.
This sanctimonious blather is just one more aspect of this over-the-hill- putrid piece of dung covering his six, and, of course, distancing himself from harm’s way!
How I despise these political hacks. Novak would sell his mother for a thin dime — and not blink an eye in the transaction.
Senator Leahy is hinting that the may call him to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Fitzgerald May Testify on Prosecution of Libby Case, Leahy Says
By John Hughes
July 8 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald may be called to testify about his prosecution of former vice presidential aide Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said.Leahy and Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the panel, indicated they want to ... quiz Fitzgerald on his handling of the case.
``I still haven't figured out what that case is all about,'' Specter said. ``There are a lot of ramifications that I think we ought to go into. Why were they pursuing the matter long after there was no underlying crime on the outing of the CIA agent? Why were they pursuing it after we knew who the leaker was?''
Always saw Novak as a joke-pushed on us by CNN who wanted a Thurston Howell the 3rd type to push the “out of touch” rich country club republican stereotype. It went well with the “golly gee willikers” bow tie whitebread boy. What a combo.
ONG--you mean me and Arlen Specter agree on something? And he's NOT attacking a Republican?
(grasping chest) This is the big one, 'Lizabeth! I'm comin' ta join ya, honey!
Yep, Novak is scum, and so is Armitage.
Amen. Novack could barely get a sentence out that didn’t sound like the blathering of a rich country club Republican, and Carlson was a spineless jellyfish whose voice cracked when he managed to say anything with any kind of substance. The audience was usually laughing at them.
The Republicans blew their chance to subpoena Valerie and Joe to appear before a congressional committee and explain, under OATH, their various roles in the Niger affair.
If Plame were indeed a ‘covert agent’ of the CIA, her testimony would have been limited to her role in getting her husband, Joe Wilson, the job nomination to go to Niger.
(The CIA would have requested that no questions about her covert position be raised or mentioned, and the committee would probably have agreed to it). Apparently they didn’t.
However, no one knows WHEN Plame was a ‘cover operative’ or “agent”, and there is a great deal of significance in the difference betweent them.
Joe Wilson would have lied under OATH about who suggested him for his trip for the CIA, etc., and he would have gone to jail, but the Republicans, trying to be gentlemen in a whorehouse fight, missed their best chance to explode the lies that the Wilsons perpetrated, aided and abetted by the Democrats. Stupid is as stupid does.
Fitzgerald might be found guilty of malicious prosecution because he knew that Armitage, not Libby, revealed Plame’s name as a CIA employee, and failed to tell the grand jury about it (the grand jury would probably NOT have indicted Libby if they had known this). This is a crime by Fitz and he should pay for it (i.e. Nifong did the same thing in the Duke case, and see what was done to him).
Armitage should have had the guts to stand up like a man and say that he was the one who mentioned Plame’s name, not Libby. He is a coward!
If any congressional republicans have any remaining guts, they will raise the Fitzgerald and Plame/Wilson issues in upcoming congressional hearings and DEMAND that they be put under OATH to answer for their actions.
Gee, lunatic secrets leaker Sen. Leahy is doing that to White House staff right now, so why not demand the same rights of hearings and questioning of the Wilson crew and Fittzy?)
If you want to play in the big leagues, you’ve got to play to win. The Republicans have lost their desire to win, only to survive. Whimps, whusses, and losers.
I hope that Fred Thompson has the guts to raise the Plame/Wilson and Fitzgerald acts of misconduct and lying in his presidential campaign, and the COVERUP by the Democrats in their congressional hearings and press conferences.
Take no prisoners!!
Spector is actually having a moment of clarity and sanity? Say it’s true. I don’t know if I can stand “the big one” (a la Red Foxx).
Did this wimpy Republican senator get a cochanes transplant over the weekend?
As far as I know, Novak has always been a Democrat.
Fitzgerald = Nifong. Malicious prosecution.
Indeed, during the primary season, if Thompson brings up this issue, with his background, it can solidify party support. Libby is so obviously a victim here, not only of Fitzy but from jurors who openly admitted they really wanted to see Cheney or Bush prosecuted.
I wish i knew why the Republicans didn't call Plame and Wilson. That the Democrats didn't shows they know they're not all the media have made them out to be, and would hurt rather than help their 'Bush lied" cause.
The fact that Armitage was not prosecuted pretty much proves that she was NOT a covert op.
That's right. "Republican" Tom Davis, who was Chairman of the House Oversight Committee before the Dems took over, couldn't be bothered to compel the Wilsons to tell the truth under oath. He also couldn't be bothered to get around to why Sandy Berger was able to walk around free until he was a lame duck. The lazy bum didn't even stick around in April to counter current chairpig Henry Waxman when he accused Victoria Toensing of lying under oath.
Wilson’s report admits that the Iraqi’s had contact the Africans to try to obtain additional yellow cake. {They had obtained a lot of yellow cake from them previously. Now was that yellow cake obtained via legal means?}
Wilson’s main thrust of his report was to emphasize that there was no CONTRACT made between the two governments. Perhaps they used some other word for it, or had a cut out agent so that each dealt with a third party - Wilson for example.
Did Wilson ever try to contact the White House - or did he just instead complain in the press.
And isn’t that unusual for the press to give him that much space for an unproven claim on his part?
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